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Pete
07-31-2011, 08:55 PM
One of the things that has bothered me since around 1980 has been this obsession with "standards of excellence" and being "outstanding" all the time. It's not that I don't thing we shouldn't pursue those goals, it's that we're not there yet, in most cases have not been there, but pretending that we are can lead to a kind of dangerous self-deception and an atmosphere in which even to acknowledge that things could be better can come back on you for saying it in the first place.

We all agree that training in the U.S. Army should be better. But to admit that combat skills and overall efficiency could be better within an element under one's own control can be tantamount to confessing to professional dereliction of duty. Thus you better have a solution to the problem, or better yet, not say anything at all about it to any superiors. Just fix it as best you can, even if the solution is half-a**.

Thus these "standards of excellence" and this "outstanding" phenemonena can turn into a self-winding problem within the command atmosphere that leads to deficiencies not being resolved and things being covered up.

I remember around 1980 when U.S. Army Europe put a big emphasis on individual training in battalions while they were in garrison. The problem is the higher HQs sent so many inspectors around with clipboards with evaluation checklists that our NCOs and junior officers got stage fright and were afraid be torn a new one. Thus this conceit about being excellent all the time can prevent you from being even mediocre.

selil
08-01-2011, 02:27 PM
This problem is very similar to other areas of education and assessment. Assessment by nature is tied to measurement. What you measure is usually an output of a process or a defined task. What you value though may be only tangentially tied to that process or task. When you look at "excellence" you add to the problem by now setting an external value to what has been assessed, may only be partially tied to what you value, and often is tied to inappropriate methods of measurement.

Take the word "command". If I ask you to define the word command you will make basic assumptions on what to do. You will likely pick one of a few desired paths:
1) You reach for a doctrinal publication and find the word command and report back on that as the gospel or definitive source.
2) Perhaps you do something similar and "google" or find a dictionary definition of the term.
3) Maybe you express yourself and how you perceive the word and what it means to you.

But, notice I didn't say what I was assessing and provided no rubric for that assessment. For all intents in purposes I could be assessing your thinking strategies and ability to think outside the box. I could be evaluating your adherence to certain traits I obliquely am testing in military matters. Perhaps I could care less about the word command, but I want to assess your ability to express the traits and qualities that a rubric or other method of assessment values.

The superlative of "outstanding" though can have no reasonable metric or value applied to it without having a real principle of measurement to base the resulting valuation. As a result it is meaningless regardless of what it is measuring unless the strategy of evaluation has been determined. This though can lead to the second problem which is measuring everything with no plan or strategy in place for what to do with those measurements. So you send a lot of people around measuring a bunch of things but there is no real standard to meet and no assessment mechanism for that standard. Just a bunch of metrics. Metrics are not measurement. 50 guys in the company are a size 10 boot. So what. To be valid there must be associated data (even if just a normalized curve).

So.. the principle of "outstanding" is less than an outstanding result of lazy leadership. Or, so IMHO it must be.

120mm
08-01-2011, 04:31 PM
In an army of incompetents, superlatives is all they have, really.

Take ISAF's ISAF Joint Command (IJC) (How messed up are you when your acronym has an acronym in it?)

Their psyop shop is called the "Information Dominance Center".

Too bad the only thing they "Dominate" is a never ending contest for incompetence, stupidity and bad ideas. They consistently get their butts handed to them, I/O wise, by a bunch of uneducated, functionally illiterates living in caves and mud huts.

Or "Warrior" this, or "Warrior" that. You do realize that if you told a real "Warrior" that his socks or PT footgear were improper and started to chew him out for it, he would cut off your head, rip out your guts and eat your liver, raw, don't you?

I've never met anyone who was truly seeking excellence who EVER self-promoted. Mostly, they were too busy working hard to get better at not sucking to crow about how friggin' "excellent" they were.

Fuchs
08-01-2011, 04:43 PM
I have a nice anecdote from the German air force that might be relevant to the thread and of (humorous) interest.

There were (are?) those exercises in which wings demonstrate their readiness to NATO. Foreign officers come to the base and observe, give grades.

Flight safety cannot be "excellent" if you have no backup radar for your tower.

Well, what do you do if u have no backup radar, never had one?

You 'organise' some obscure radar from the 60's on a trailer, set it up, plug in the cables safely and show it off.

Now what I heard about this backup radar is that it was
a) not working (and didn't for decades)
b) not legal to use because of excessive radiation
c) quite useless for the purpose (even if it worked)
d) the only one in the Luftwaffe, thus shipped to every wing that has its inspection only to be showed off as backup radar at another wing a few weeks later.


All attempts to institutionalize or fashion-ize "excellence" are stupid in my opinion.

Pete
08-01-2011, 05:07 PM
My previous message speaks more to the climate of command rather than the evaluation standards for training.

When you load an M60 Machine Gun which side of the belt should be on top, the clean side or the one with all the links showing? What is the immediate action to clear a malfunction or jam?

If you say that many in your unit can't perform those tasks or answer those questions some of your superiors might think you're a dangerous guy to have around. After all, all of us here are "outstanding" and we have "standards of excellence," except for that guy who said his troops don't know how to load a machine gun. Therefore, shoot the messenger.

Without a doubt in Jessica Lynch's Ordnance maintenance battalion where 80 percent of the M16s jammed the field-grade officers and senior NCOs had all received MSMs when they PCSed and the junior officers and NCOs got ARCOMs. It had probably been going on for 10 years.

"We have standards of excellence around here."

Ken White
08-01-2011, 05:17 PM
both 'outstanding' grades and 'excellence' for basic competence any day of the week... :cool:

Stan
08-01-2011, 07:31 PM
Brass to the grass and close the cover :D

Wait 5 seconds.... And,

Always assume the M60 is loaded.

120mm
08-02-2011, 05:14 PM
Without a doubt in Jessica Lynch's Ordnance maintenance battalion where 80 percent of the M16s jammed the field-grade officers and senior NCOs had all received MSMs when they PCSed and the junior officers and NCOs got ARCOMs. It had probably been going on for 10 years.

"We have standards of excellence around here."

Even worse, they got Bronze Stars before their deployment was up.

I've seen Active Duty O-6s relieved for incompetence at the beginning of their tours, being replaced with Reservist O-4s, and then the relived O6 is brought back in for the last month, and is then given a terrific OER, a Bronze Star and put back into the promotion que.

bumperplate
08-02-2011, 05:54 PM
I see little reason to believe that our military will avoid purging all of the warfighters and "warriors" once the two current theaters are closed. The trend toward a garrison mentality seems to be creeping back in already.

120mm
08-03-2011, 02:38 AM
I see little reason to believe that our military will avoid purging all of the warfighters and "warriors" once the two current theaters are closed. The trend toward a garrison mentality seems to be creeping back in already.

The garrison mentality never left.

The US Army never even went to war.

Individual soldiers went to war; a very very small minority of units went to war, but the institutional Army never even noticed. They just transplanted themselves in Iraq and Afghanistan, creating one self-licking ice cream cone after another.

bumperplate
08-03-2011, 02:21 PM
You may be right. From what I've seen, all the comments from our senior leaders have been directed at the GWOT for the past decade or so, telling us our force is the most disciplined and most capable in the history of mankind, yada yada yada. Now, all of a sudden we are lacking fitness, discipline, and a professional ethos, or so it seems, based on their most recent comments.

So, perhaps you are right...maybe that garrison mentality was simply put on hold, by those that grew up in garrison and made their way to the top in a garrison environment.

Steve Blair
08-03-2011, 02:38 PM
You may be right. From what I've seen, all the comments from our senior leaders have been directed at the GWOT for the past decade or so, telling us our force is the most disciplined and most capable in the history of mankind, yada yada yada. Now, all of a sudden we are lacking fitness, discipline, and a professional ethos, or so it seems, based on their most recent comments.

So, perhaps you are right...maybe that garrison mentality was simply put on hold, by those that grew up in garrison and made their way to the top in a garrison environment.

Same thing happened during the Vietnam era. Vietnam was a distraction or interruption from the "real" business of soldiering.

JMA
08-04-2011, 01:10 AM
The garrison mentality never left.

The US Army never even went to war.

Individual soldiers went to war; a very very small minority of units went to war, but the institutional Army never even noticed. They just transplanted themselves in Iraq and Afghanistan, creating one self-licking ice cream cone after another.

Know that situation well. Pulled off ops for a week to 'celebrate' the battalions birthday. The troopies were met on return by the real soldiers.

http://a6.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/281783_1284856813229_1584416477_30666306_647138_n. jpg

JMA
08-04-2011, 01:31 AM
... that garrison mentality...

Remembering back to 1979 I read a book War on the Mind (http://www.amazon.co.uk/War-Mind-Military-Psychology-Pelican/dp/0140223002/ref=sr_1_12?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1312420466&sr=1-12)

It had a chapter/section on Garrison Leaders which struck a cord with me to the extent I wrote a piece on it for the Rhodesian Army Quarterly Magazine.

Google Books provides the following snippets (http://books.google.co.za/books?id=5kAIAAAAIAAJ&dq=War+on+the+mind&q=garrison#search_anchor):


"Good garrison leaders, for example, were found to be aggressive, as were combat leaders, but were also found to do better if they were sticklers for the rule book, athletic, possessed a passion for detail, had a good physical bearing and personal tact. None of these were found to be relevant for an officer to be effective as a leader in wartime."

Quick in and out six month tours also suit these garrison types as they can get the campaign medals with the least effort (and probably in a post with the least risk).

jkm_101_fso
08-04-2011, 01:38 AM
I'm a two-time "go" at the Fires Center of Excellence...based on my performance on both occasions, it should be renamed the Fires Center of Mediocrity.

bumperplate
08-04-2011, 01:41 PM
The question is, do we want to change this? Should we be purging the 'warrior' mindset after a war? Should we go back to a garrison mentality, then transition again when war starts again? What are the consequences of having a lot of combat-hardened veterans in your formation that are good at fighting but not so much at parade field antics?

My opinion is that our military would be better off keeping those fighters in the ranks, and learning how to best deal with that, nurture it, and put things in place to ensure a good transition to civilian life once they leave the military. To me that's better than the alternative which means we will surely fill more body bags than necessary each time we go to war.

Fuchs
08-04-2011, 04:12 PM
It's really a relatively simple issue of forcing a bureaucracy to stay away from pursuing its natural path and interest and forcing it to focus on its mission.

The mechanics and psychology of bureaucracy are quite well-understood, all it takes to force it on a better course than its default autopilot is leadership.

Then again, in war and bureaucracy all simple things are difficult.

bumperplate
08-04-2011, 08:39 PM
Interesting how that leadership thing keeps coming up, or do we not do leadership any longer? Do we just do mission command? Or command & control?

We've dissected this so much I don't know the party line any longer.

Fuchs
08-05-2011, 02:20 PM
It's not mutually exclusive at all, in fact it's reinforcing each other.

Someone (I think he was registered here) once helped me to understand how unusual the famous 1930's Truppenführung (TF) field manual actually was when he pointed out that it's unusual for a field manual to spend 28 pages on a "leadership" chapter (as 2nd chapter, directly behind a quick overview of the macro organisation of the army).

That chapter wasn't about the kind of leadership that I meant, though. It was rather about the tasks and principles of a leader and about techniques of leadership.

I meant that leaders are responsible for steering the ship into the right direction, and must not allow that drifting becomes the primary method of movement.


A bureaucracy builds a self-licking ice cone in which the majority of personnel becomes "excellent" or "outstanding"? That is what I meant with "drifting".

Pete
08-05-2011, 06:36 PM
Inserted by Moderator taken from author's request:If I could modify my previous post in this thread I would (so please refer to Post 28 where I clarify what I meant to say.


At the ripe old age of 58 I'm coming to the conclusion that there is a fact I have to acknowledge if I'm ever going to be a mature grown-up. There are two kinds of people in the world, the self-promoting phonies with the big facades who by and large run the major institutions of our world and take most of the credit; and there are those who actually do the work. This "prancers and dancers" versus combat soldier thing has gone on from time immemorial and it always will. U.S. Grant was a notable exception to this rule.

There is only a stray and random chance that most of us will ever be put into a situation where we know exactly what to do and we earn the Medal of Honor or Victoria Cross. Chances are it won't happen. Thus this office politics stuff is what we have to live with.

Many of us are somewhere in-between those two poles of integrity and hard work. You might realize that a colleague is speaking the God's Own Truth about how a superior is a five-star horse's *ss but most of us decide to stay out of the line of fire for the purpose of self-preservation. Thus is comes down to staying in your own lane -- do your job well, keep your honor clean, but be careful about the things for which you would fall on your sword.

bumperplate
08-05-2011, 09:08 PM
Good words from Pete. Wish I could live up to them - I have a hard time keeping my mouth shut when I see problems. People don't generally take it very well. Not sure if the problem is the message or the messenger.

JMA
08-06-2011, 09:32 AM
It's not mutually exclusive at all, in fact it's reinforcing each other.

Someone (I think he was registered here) once helped me to understand how unusual the famous 1930's Truppenführung (TF) field manual actually was when he pointed out that it's unusual for a field manual to spend 28 pages on a "leadership" chapter (as 2nd chapter, directly behind a quick overview of the macro organisation of the army).

That chapter wasn't about the kind of leadership that I meant, though. It was rather about the tasks and principles of a leader and about techniques of leadership.

I meant that leaders are responsible for steering the ship into the right direction, and must not allow that drifting becomes the primary method of movement.

A bureaucracy builds a self-licking ice cone in which the majority of personnel becomes "excellent" or "outstanding"? That is what I meant with "drifting".

I have the translation of that book. That section you talk of is translated as 'Command' and does cover command aspects.

Indeed command is not leadership just as neither are 'management'.

Just look up leadership definitions and see how the academics can screw things up.

Leadership is not a function of one's position but rather the intangible ability to induce others to voluntarily submit to leadership.

Watch kids in a playground - applies to all ages - there you will see at play the natural leaders doing what comes naturally.

'All Leadership is influence' - John C. Maxwell


‘Sound leadership - like true love, to which I suspect it is closely related - is all powerful. It can overcome the seemingly impossible and its effect on both leader and led is profound and lasting’. - Sydney Jary MC 18 Platoon.

Any bureaucracy (including the military) needs to be purged periodically... preferably in the style of Stalin.

davidbfpo
08-06-2011, 10:16 AM
JMA stated just:
Any bureaucracy (including the military) needs to be purged periodically... preferably in the style of Stalin.

From my reading of WW2 military history, mainly British admittedly, to a lesser extent WW1, the British can be ruthless in removing senior commanders perceived to have failed; Jim Storr's book 'The Human Face of War' cites the BEF (forces sent to France) had seventeen division and above commanders, five disappeared and six never had a field command again (one was a POW).

Another historian, Peter Caddick-Adams, has looked at lower levels of BEF command and referred in a lecture a few years ago that defeat in May 1940 helped the British Army evolve into a fit, fighting force. When questioned on this he attributed this to the physical and mental collapse of many commanders faced with the Blitzkreig, those taken POW and "weeding out" upon return.

This "weeding out" continued to 1945, for example General Anderson, who commanded an army in North Africa, Operation Torch and then effectively never commanded again:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Arthur_Noel_Anderson

I know Red Rat has looked at this issue too and has more books than I on this.

"Weeding out" can happen in the UK police too, usually far less public and an academic who studied the RUC noted that after an external review in 1969, a third of mid-rank commanders were retained, a third told to retire and a third encouraged to move - to the mainland or the colonies.

The current PM, David Cameron, has publicly indicated the police service needs a new generation of senior leadership, even from abroad or the military. Bill Bratton, ex-NYPD & LAPD, cited as his preference for the next Metropolitan Police Commissioner. See:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8684272/Why-has-the-best-man-to-run-the-Metropolitan-Police-been-barred-from-applying.html

I wonder if any of the military committed in recent wars have seen weaknesses before or during deployment?

Stalin's purge model is not one I'd follow:
At the end, three of five Soviet Marshals, 90% of all Red Army generals, 80% of Red Army colonels, and 30,000 officers of lesser rank had been purged. Virtually all were executed.
At first it was thought 25-50% of Red Army officers were purged, it is now known to be 3.7-7.7%.

From:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_of_Trotskyist_Anti-Soviet_Military_Organization

Fuchs
08-06-2011, 10:22 AM
JMA; don't trust translations. Some words have multiple meanings.

109. Die persönliche Einwirkung auf die Truppe durch ihren oberen Führer ist von größter Bedeutung. Er muß der kämpfenden Truppe nahe sein.

(The personal influence on the troops by their superior leader is of greatest relevance. He has to be close to the troops.)

115. Bei der Verfolgung muß sich der obere Füher weiter nach vorne begeben. Sein Escheinen in der vorderen Linie wird die Truppe zur höchsten Leistung anspornen.

(In a pursuit the superior leader has to move farther forward. His appearance in the forward line will motivate the troops to utmost efforts.)

JMA
08-06-2011, 12:43 PM
JMA; don't trust translations. Some words have multiple meanings.

109. Die persönliche Einwirkung auf die Truppe durch ihren oberen Führer ist von größter Bedeutung. Er muß der kämpfenden Truppe nahe sein.

(The personal influence on the troops by their superior leader is of greatest relevance. He has to be close to the troops.)

115. Bei der Verfolgung muß sich der obere Füher weiter nach vorne begeben. Sein Escheinen in der vorderen Linie wird die Truppe zur höchsten Leistung anspornen.

(In a pursuit the superior leader has to move farther forward. His appearance in the forward line will motivate the troops to utmost efforts.)

From the book (http://www.amazon.co.uk/German-Art-War-Truppenfuhrung/dp/1555879969/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1312634400&sr=1-2) the translations are as follows:


109. The personal influence of the commander on his troops is vitally important. He must position himself close to the combat units.

and

115. During pursuit operations, the commander must move with the forward elements. His presence in the front will inspire his units.

My point is that this is stuff a natural leader would know without being told.

Fuchs
08-06-2011, 01:19 PM
Regrettably, my translation was a bit sloppy this time, but the translation from your book is even worse.

Improved:

109. Die persönliche Einwirkung auf die Truppe durch ihren oberen Führer ist von größter Bedeutung. Er muß der kämpfenden Truppe nahe sein.

(The personal influence on the troops by their superior leader is of greatest relevance. He has to be close to the fighting troops.)

115. Bei der Verfolgung muß sich der obere Füher weiter nach vorne begeben. Sein Erscheinen in der vorderen Linie wird die Truppe zur höchsten Leistung anspornen.

(In a pursuit the superior leader has to move farther forward. His appearance in the forward line will motivate the troops to highest performance.)


The translator from your book didn't get that "Er muß der kämpfenden Truppe nahe sein." can have multiple meanings, not only a geographical one.

"weiter nach vorne begeben" does not mean that he has to be with his forward elements. Google for example says "go further forward" to this.

"will inspire his units" is simply understatement and conceals the true emphasis of the manual.



About natural leaders; armies don't just use natural leaders. Actually, many of the natural leaders are unsuitable for leading men in warfare. Armies are no warbands.

Armies may in fact - due to their bureaucratic nature - blunt early on what they need the most: People who are not easily satisfied, denounce failure and work for improvement. Such persons are very uneasy subordinates and expose failure of oversight of their superiors.
The bureaucratic response it to minimise the itching by blunting such types.

This drive for improvement and intolerance for failure is what officers need to have without being told to acquire it.

Their effectiveness in getting rid of failures is largely a given if they're equipped with the necessary authority by the bureaucracy. You don't need much charisma for that in an army.


edit: Now you can imagine the problems my former employer's interpreter came into when I was tasked with checking his translations. After a while he conceded that he had to work much more thoroughly and that I always ended up discussing the parts where he hadn't been sure about the proper translation even after much effort!
He had a standard fee per 100 words, so he didn't even increase his income with all that extra work...

bumperplate
08-06-2011, 06:08 PM
I do not have the book mentioned above, although I am going to order it right now. There is a Stackpole edition out with the same authors/editors, copyright 2009, that seems to be much cheaper, so I'll probably order that one.

However, from the passages listed above, it seems this book attacks the subjects of command & leadership solely from a combat perspective and that seems to be line in the sand on these threads about excellence, leadership, and so forth. There is garrison management and combat leadership, but unfortunately our garrison managers are wearing the rank that takes them to combat in leadership positions. That is our problem. Seems to me the Germans had a different system whereby their Army was recruited from districts which were overseen by separate commanders that were either not deemed to be combat leaders or were injured or in some other way should not be at the front, and if I remember correctly they employed a similar system for the logistical resupply and garrison/refit environments. But, once they deployed to combat, the combat leaders were in charge.

Perhaps that is a model our military should begin following.

Pete
08-06-2011, 07:21 PM
If I could modify my previous post in this thread (Post 20) I would, but I can't. Therefore this clarification of what I mean to say.

Most of the successful leaders in the U.S. armed forces are a combination of being showboats and down-and-dirty people who get things done. It's not quite as binary as my previous message implied. It's sort of a spectrum between the two extremes, and most men and women who wear the green suit fall somewhere in the middle between those two poles.

Many of the leadership essays and textbooks say there is an element of showmanship about leadership. It's a matter of projecting self-confidence and charisma in front of others. It could be when you're addressing your company or battery or it could be while you're giving a briefing in the Pentagon.

Then there is the nuts-and-bolts stuff of being a soldier -- leadership, weapons, tactics, and solving practical problems. You've got to know your stuff, and if you don't the others will know it.

For better or for worse I've known good officers who are a combination of these two types of soldier. On one hand they can be inspiring leaders who get things done in the field or office, but on the other they are military politicians who suck up and brown-nose to their superiors.

In 1994 as a contractor I worked for a young major like that who is now an O-6. He got the operational job done when we were overseas, but some of the PowerPoint briefings he gave about the excellence of the things he was doing were flagrantly dishonest.

It seems to me that many people in the Army think they have to play the politics and appearance-versus-reality game even when they are competent soldiers who know their trade. I suspect that during the last 20 years this syndrome has infected the senior NCO corps as well.

In things like this it's hard to sort out who are the heroes and who are the villains. Nuances and shades of gray.

bumperplate
08-07-2011, 12:29 AM
I think Pete's last comment is probably at the 99% solution. I know my biggest struggle is that I keep seeking to be honest in my assessments and messages. I've grown tired of reading OERs and seeing briefings that are gross exaggerations if not lies.

I do what I can in front of my Soldiers to portray the confidence, but more than confidence, I think passion carries a larger effect. When your troops see that you're passionate about the mission and about taking care of them, that carries a lot of weight. Passion is much more durable than mere confidence.

In the end analysis, I have come to the conclusion that I will never make it to the top shelf ranks in the Army. I am not a self-promoter and cannot keep my mouth shut when I see crap going on. It will probably cut my career short but so be it. All else that we do pales in comparison to combat and that's my focus - training for and leading in combat.

I do wonder though, it seems like the people with the best handle on military/combat leadership are those on this and similar sites, while those with the real power in the military just don't pay attention. I'm not totally ignorant to the time demands our senior leaders have. And I don't think I'd have a problem if they just took over the garrison and admin stuff and then let the real combat leaders take over once they're wheels up and leaving CONUS.

Fuchs
08-07-2011, 01:16 AM
Don Vandergriff and others wrote a lot about that problem and possible solutions.

Tyree
08-07-2011, 02:11 AM
And so did Doug Macgregor. They are both now on the outside looking in. Both were men of great talent. Both had something vital to say. But both proved once again it is not what you say, the validity of your message, but how you say it and to whom.

ganulv
08-07-2011, 03:16 AM
I've grown tired of reading OERs and seeing briefings that are gross exaggerations if not lies. […] I am not a self-promoter and cannot keep my mouth shut when I see crap going on. It will probably cut my career short but so be it.

A friend told me that her grandfather (a career state legislator) once said to her that an important part of being an effective politician was never loosing a grip on the difference between what he told everyone he was convinced was the truth and what he himself was convinced was the truth. I don't know how many people in positions of power think like that. I kind of suspect that a great many of them don't even rise to that level morally, but maybe I am just being cynical.

JMA
08-07-2011, 06:21 AM
I do not have the book mentioned above, although I am going to order it right now. There is a Stackpole edition out with the same authors/editors, copyright 2009, that seems to be much cheaper, so I'll probably order that one.

This book is the pre WW2 German Army doctrine.

A quote from the foreword:


Despite the evil nature of the regime it served, it must be admitted that the German Army of World War II was, man for man, one of the most effective fighting forces ever seen.

A valuable reference work to have on a soldiers bookshelf.

JMA
08-07-2011, 06:43 AM
About natural leaders; armies don't just use natural leaders. Actually, many of the natural leaders are unsuitable for leading men in warfare. Armies are no warbands.

Yes natural leaders come in all shapes and sizes, they lead street gangs, drug cartels and some Wall Street financial firms. So yes not all are suitable top command positions as the Peter Principle applies to them too. But if I were commanding a battalion the more natural leaders I had carrying rank (from L/Cpl upwards) the more confident I would be going into action... especially in a counter-insurgency setting.

As an aside it is often surprising who rises as a leader in a tough combat setting when those with rank falter and here I'm not just talking about acts of personal bravery but acts of leadership.


Armies may in fact - due to their bureaucratic nature - blunt early on what they need the most: People who are not easily satisfied, denounce failure and work for improvement. Such persons are very uneasy subordinates and expose failure of oversight of their superiors.
The bureaucratic response it to minimise the itching by blunting such types.

A good natural leader would be able to guide and channel such people to utilise their abilities to the full... I know I worked for a few ;)


This drive for improvement and intolerance for failure is what officers need to have without being told to acquire it.

Their effectiveness in getting rid of failures is largely a given if they're equipped with the necessary authority by the bureaucracy. You don't need much charisma for that in an army.

Not quite. In an earlier post somewhere here I suggested that some seats on aircraft out of Afghanistan should be reserved to take officers/NCOs/soldiers home who failed to perform on ops. I was told that the US does not work that way... they reassign them. There lies the root of another problem...

Note: You use of charisma. Yes certain 'high profile' leaders have charisma (definition: A rare personal quality attributed to leaders who arouse fervent popular devotion and enthusiasm.)

This guy says it best:


To lead people, walk beside them … As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The next, the people fear; and the next, the people hate … When the best leader’s work is done the people say, ‘We did it ourselves! - Lao-Tsu

Ken White
08-07-2011, 08:42 PM
A good natural leader would be able to guide and channel such people to utilise their abilities to the full... I know I worked for a few ;)Me, too -- few (unfortunately) being the right word... :mad:
Not quite. In an earlier post somewhere here I suggested that some seats on aircraft out of Afghanistan should be reserved to take officers/NCOs/soldiers home who failed to perform on ops. I was told that the US does not work that way... they reassign them. There lies the root of another problem...The US Army would really like to work that way. Unfortunately, the US Congress -- who funds that Army as its whims dictate (and who just orchestrated a down grade of the credit of the US in an absolutely stunning display of their level of competence) do not agree. May be 'unfair', you see; may be based on a whim. Can't have that... :rolleyes:

Whims are apparently okay for the Congroids but not for the Army. Nor is mere competence or experience enough basis for personnel decisions -- they must be totally objective and empirically derived (he said, ROFLHAO...:D ).

Pete
08-07-2011, 08:43 PM
I am not a self-promoter and cannot keep my mouth shut when I see crap going on. It will probably cut my career short but so be it.
After the Mexican War U.S. Grant had a big Report of Survey against him when he had been the Quartermaster Officer of his regiment when it was in the Midwest during an extremely severe winter. The regiment was spread out all across the land in detachments, companies and battalions. Grant did all he could to keep them fed, with firewood and forage. When spring came Grant had to face the Report of Survey, and afterwards he had to go about a year without pay to pay it off.

When he was the senior officer of a group sent to California around 1850 the people were hit with a cholera epidemic when they crossed Panama. Men and women, officers and enlisted, children too were shi**ing themselves to death. Grant said it was the worst thing he saw during his military service, war or peace. When Grant got the group to San Francisco he get no credit from his regiment or the Army for his leadership during the affair.

After Grant got the old heave-ho from the Army his wife left him and moved back in with her father. Everyone thought U.S. Grant was an alcholohic loser.

Perceptions changed after he captured Vicksburg. In 1864 Lincoln decided he needed a real soldier in command of the Army of the Potomac, not a showboat, a prancer and dancer, or someone who would juggle the books to cover up a supply discrepancy on the property book. Grant's tactics were crude and bloody in '64-'65 but he got the job done. He was never a showboat and he was wearing a mud-splattered private's tunic when Lee surrendered to him.

bumperplate
08-07-2011, 09:24 PM
I wonder if our Army/Society/Current operational environment would ever allow for a repeat of Grant's story as told above. I suspect it could not happen. We are too worried about metrics with regard to leadership, rather than mission results.

Ulenspiegel
08-08-2011, 07:10 AM
What would be the problem to implement an officer training/education program as it existed in the German Reichswehr 1920-1932?

IMHO a good reading in respect to different leadership and different approaches to officer candidates selection is Jörg Muth's book "Command Culture" published in June 2011, it is the book version of the author's dissertation.

Steve Blair
08-08-2011, 05:52 PM
After Grant got the old heave-ho from the Army his wife left him and moved back in with her father. Everyone thought U.S. Grant was an alcholohic loser.

Perceptions changed after he captured Vicksburg. In 1864 Lincoln decided he needed a real soldier in command of the Army of the Potomac, not a showboat, a prancer and dancer, or someone who would juggle the books to cover up a supply discrepancy on the property book. Grant's tactics were crude and bloody in '64-'65 but he got the job done. He was never a showboat and he was wearing a mud-splattered private's tunic when Lee surrendered to him.

Grant's wife didn't leave him. She'd periodically lived with her family, as was quite common during this time. And Grant's star began to rise with Lincoln during the Donelson period, with more motion coming in the aftermath of Shiloh. But that's just the historian talking. Carry on...:D

To address bumperplate's comment, Grant was in many ways an exception even during his day. Many officers in the pre-Civil War army would look very familiar to us today. Drones and careerists were just as common then in terms of the overall force (remember that we're talking about an army that didn't often clear 20,000 total strength and was often under 15,000). For every Civil War success we remember, there were at least 5 duds from the Regular ranks.

Pete
08-08-2011, 06:45 PM
... Grant was in many ways an exception even during his day. Many officers in the pre-Civil War army would look very familiar to us today. Drones and careerists ...
What was exceptional about Grant was that he made it to the top and won the war nobody else could. The problem with this precedent from history is that America won't put a guy like him in charge until it's 5 or 10 minutes until Midnight and the end of the world as we know it is impending. As Churchill said, America can always be relied upon to do the right thing after it has exhausted all of the other alternatives.

Steve Blair
08-08-2011, 08:13 PM
What was exceptional about Grant was that he made it to the top and won the war nobody else could. The problem with this precedent from history is that America won't put a guy like him in charge until it's 5 or 10 minutes until Midnight and the end of the world as we know it is impending. As Churchill said, America can always be relied upon to do the right thing after it has exhausted all of the other alternatives.

It's the nature of the system, Pete, and I think you'll find that the US is not alone in this respect. We just talk about our failings more than most other nations do.;)

JMA
08-09-2011, 05:09 PM
What would be the problem to implement an officer training/education program as it existed in the German Reichswehr 1920-1932?

IMHO a good reading in respect to different leadership and different approaches to officer candidates selection is Jörg Muth's book "Command Culture" published in June 2011, it is the book version of the author's dissertation.

Muth's book at £25 is expensive to buy but should be very educational.

In the meantime here is a US document from 1942 on the broader subject of German Army training.

German Military Training (http://www.cgsc.edu/carl/wwIIspec/number03.pdf)

Given the economic condition of Germany after Versailles and the restrictions on the military the methods used to build that war machine should indeed be studied as there must be lessons for other nations in there somewhere.

Fuchs
08-09-2011, 06:24 PM
I'd rather look at the Foreign Military Studies series of documents than those wartime intelligence briefs, which were ridden with mistakes.

For example, Hitler did not solve the problem how to create an officer corps for a 300 division force; even counting Luftwaffe divisions, there were only about half that many, and army officers were always short in supply.
A 300 division force with a (normal) divisional slice of 50k personnel would have been a force of 15 million men; it would have required French- or Soviet-style mobilization to come even close!

Another example is the SA, which became quite irrelevant in 1934 and was certainly not the kind of important organisation in 39/40 as described in that 1942 document.

ganulv
08-09-2011, 06:31 PM
Given the economic condition of Germany after Versailles and the restrictions on the military the methods used to build that war machine should indeed be studied as there must be lessons for other nations in there somewhere.

Have you seen Triumph of the Will (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcFuHGHfYwE)? I watched it for the first time recently. My mouth might literally have hung open during the initial footage featuring units from the National Work Service (http://www.feldgrau.com/rad.html).

http://www.ww2incolor.com/d/369812-2/Bundesarchiv_B_145_Bild-P021658__Reichsarbeitsdienst__Marsch_zu_einer_Kund gebung

Ulenspiegel
08-10-2011, 08:31 AM
A very good dissertation on the structure, selection, training and expansion of the German officer corps is:

Autor: Richhardt, Dirk
Titel: Auswahl und Ausbildung junger Offiziere 1930-1945
Titel (eng): Selection and trainig of young officers 1930-1945
Erscheinungsjahr: 2002
Fachbereich: Fachbereich Geschichte und Kulturwissenschaften, Philipps-Universität Marburg
Institut: Geschichte und Kulturwissenschaften
Format: Portable Document Format (PDF 2.2M)
URL: http://archiv.ub.uni-marburg.de/diss/z2005/0100/
URN: urn:nbn:de:hebis:04-z2005-01003
DDC-Sachgruppe: 943 Geschichte Deutschlands

This publication (only in German) gives a lot of hard numbers and describes in detail the dramatic chages of the officer training after 1941 due to the high losses at the ostfront. The combination with Muth's "Command Culture" and parts of Crevelt's "Fighting Power" gives a quite complete picture for the Greman side.

bumperplate
08-11-2011, 01:04 AM
I sat through an IPR today where people talked about the CG going ballistic about "dog & pony" show type of stuff. Then I come home, read this thread and I have to just laugh.

The system is not going to change. It is what it is.

I wonder if there are any units that don't get distracted by the superfluous, garrison, limp-wristed crap.

120mm
08-12-2011, 03:51 PM
Funny thing happened today to me, as well.

Was sitting through one of our twice a day production meetings (twice a day? WTF???) and someone mentioned the "80% solution".

"80%, I said... don't you mean 70% solution?" I mean, the basis for the phrase was that 70% was "passing".

But, no, some mouth breathing moron decided that if 70% was good, then 80% is better, so now we need to make sure our product meets the 80% solution, because it is better.:confused::mad:

Of course, that doesn't stop the idiots at the top from taking several MONTHS to get an intel product out the door. MONTHS!!!! All in the moronic, risk averse attempt to get product "perfect".

80% solution my *ss....

ganulv
08-12-2011, 04:25 PM
Was sitting through one of our twice a day production meetings (twice a day? WTF???) and someone mentioned the "80% solution".

"80%, I said... don't you mean 70% solution?" I mean, the basis for the phrase was that 70% was "passing".

But, no, some mouth breathing moron decided that if 70% was good, then 80% is better, so now we need to make sure our product meets the 80% solution, because it is better.:confused::mad:

Sounds like someone may have been indulging in the seven-per-cent solution.

Fuchs
08-12-2011, 04:29 PM
Having a clogged nose right now...what is so evil about mouth breathing?!?

There's some kind of political committee report on the Kundus bombing event in the German news now. It strikes me how self-evident it appears to be for everyone involved that an officer who makes one mistake has to be fired and isn't acceptable for further service.

The zero failure tolerance has set in and I didn't see it coming.

Shouldn't it be self-evident that learning from mistakes, not mistakes themselves is critical? We are all fallible human beings, after all!

JMA
08-12-2011, 06:02 PM
Having a clogged nose right now...what is so evil about mouth breathing?!?

There's some kind of political committee report on the Kundus bombing event in the German news now. It strikes me how self-evident it appears to be for everyone involved that an officer who makes one mistake has to be fired and isn't acceptable for further service.

The zero failure tolerance has set in and I didn't see it coming.

Shouldn't it be self-evident that learning from mistakes, not mistakes themselves is critical? We are all fallible human beings, after all!

Reminds me of the Theodore Rooseveldt quote:

Excerpt from the speech "Citizenship In A Republic", delivered at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France on 23 April, 1910


It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

However, there is a line that needs to be drawn between an honest error and the result of incompetence.

120mm
08-13-2011, 04:16 AM
Having a clogged nose right now...what is so evil about mouth breathing?!?

There's some kind of political committee report on the Kundus bombing event in the German news now. It strikes me how self-evident it appears to be for everyone involved that an officer who makes one mistake has to be fired and isn't acceptable for further service.

The zero failure tolerance has set in and I didn't see it coming.

Shouldn't it be self-evident that learning from mistakes, not mistakes themselves is critical? We are all fallible human beings, after all!

Zero tolerance? Frankly, I'd like to see the entire officer staff of RC-N relieved and reduced to begging on the streets.

The "fail" is strong with that group of bozos.

The hard part will be finding just one to fire.

Pete
08-13-2011, 10:22 PM
I'm on both sides of this issue. At times "eyewash" is a way of putting a bit of snap and pop into a complacent unit. A bit of of it it isn't a bad thing if it causes guys to pay more attention to detail. There is a cross-over point though when too much if it is counter-productive and a waste of effort on non-productive things.

A certain amount of feeling sharp is a good thing. I never felt better than in '77 when we had starched cotton fatigues with highly shined jump-boots. The feel-good-factor went way down when the perma-press uniform came out, and fell even lower when the no-press BDUs were introduced. There was no feeling sharp any more.

bumperplate
08-13-2011, 10:35 PM
I decided the Army should never again press/starch uniforms when, one day, I went to the motorpool and found myself reluctant to get under vehicles or take a knee to inspect them, do pmcs etc - all out of concern for damaging the long hard work I'd done to make myself look sharp. The alternative was to change uniforms when going to the motorpool. Even putting coveralls over top wasn't going to stop wrinkles, creases, etc.

Anyway, it was at that point I decided that starch, pressing, and any form of looking pretty was now a nogo in my book.

I do agree there is some pride to be had in feeling sharp. However, it's never as strong as the feeling as when your unit completes a very difficult training event, or performs well in combat, etc.

Also, to be honest, I've felt more pride in being an arms room officer for instance, and seeing my SPC armorer and I produce a flawless SOP, or go through an inspection with excellent results - not because it then briefed well, but because I knew damn well that he and I both knew what we were doing and that I could trust with him any and everything related to that arms room. Did more for cohesion, esprit de corps, and so forth than any bull#### unit run could have done. Bonding and pride comes from working together to accomplish meaningful things. That stuff is durable. A unit run makes you feel good until you hit the door at the DFAC, and then it's over.

What we have these days is a bunch of commanders that go from one fleeting moment of 'feeling sharp' to another, one PowerPoint masterpiece to another. And they never actually go out there and just accomplish a mission, build a team, lead Soldiers, or anything else that has true, durable meaning.

JMA
08-14-2011, 06:55 AM
I'd rather look at the Foreign Military Studies series of documents than those wartime intelligence briefs, which were ridden with mistakes.

For example, Hitler did not solve the problem how to create an officer corps for a 300 division force; even counting Luftwaffe divisions, there were only about half that many, and army officers were always short in supply.
A 300 division force with a (normal) divisional slice of 50k personnel would have been a force of 15 million men; it would have required French- or Soviet-style mobilization to come even close!

Another example is the SA, which became quite irrelevant in 1934 and was certainly not the kind of important organisation in 39/40 as described in that 1942 document.

I did reply to this before but I think it got lost during the recent 'server issues' so I will repeat it.

Any of this 'Foreign Military Studies' stuff available online?

In the absence of available/cheap/in English alternatives the document I posted the link for is a good place to start looking at this particular subject.

JMA
08-14-2011, 07:04 AM
Have you seen Triumph of the Will (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcFuHGHfYwE)? I watched it for the first time recently. My mouth might literally have hung open during the initial footage featuring units from the National Work Service (http://www.feldgrau.com/rad.html).

I did reply to this before but I think it got lost during the recent 'server issues' so I will repeat it.

I tend to avoid the political aspects of Germany of that era and focus upon selected aspects of military interest to me. The main one is how after Versailles they put in motion the rebuilding of their military under severe economic and other constraints. There are lessons to be learned there.

Fuchs
08-14-2011, 09:20 AM
The FMS series is available online somewhere), but not for free.

The cheapest way to read one specific FMS study (IIRC 54) that I found was to travel to a distant German archive and read it there, followed by ordering photocopies for 80 bucks.

Pete
08-14-2011, 07:38 PM
What we have these days is a bunch of commanders that go from one fleeting moment of 'feeling sharp' to another, one PowerPoint masterpiece to another. And they never actually go out there and just accomplish a mission, build a team, lead Soldiers, or anything else that has true, durable meaning.
There is a danger in deciding the U.S. Army is made up of no-nonsense combat arms guys on one hand who get the job done and self-serving careerist politicians and weenies with their PowerPoint briefings on the other. The U.S. Army and real life is more nuanced than that. I've met both types of guys, but a lot of people are somewhere in between those two poles.

bumperplate
08-14-2011, 09:13 PM
You are right, and probably, if it was assessable quantitatively, we'd see that the number of careerists is about the same as the no-nonsense types. Unfortunately, the careerists have more wide ranging effects as compared to the no-nonsense types. I believe that is why the venom spit at the careerists is so extreme - so many people are affected.

A no-nonsense guy is pretty much looked at as doing his job, which leads to a lack of an appreciation for what they do. The careerists is seen and despised by many and our negativity bias keeps us fixated on their effects. Perhaps, therein lies the cure for this: just ignore the careerists and make more of an effort to acknowledge the true leaders within the ranks. The trick will be getting the "institution" to follow suit.

120mm
08-15-2011, 02:43 PM
You are right, and probably, if it was assessable quantitatively, we'd see that the number of careerists is about the same as the no-nonsense types. Unfortunately, the careerists have more wide ranging effects as compared to the no-nonsense types. I believe that is why the venom spit at the careerists is so extreme - so many people are affected.

A no-nonsense guy is pretty much looked at as doing his job, which leads to a lack of an appreciation for what they do. The careerists is seen and despised by many and our negativity bias keeps us fixated on their effects. Perhaps, therein lies the cure for this: just ignore the careerists and make more of an effort to acknowledge the true leaders within the ranks. The trick will be getting the "institution" to follow suit.

There is an additional complication:

A significant number of the "no-nonsense" guys are actually idiots who do not understand that being a senior officer is a nuanced, political job. They are noted by being tall or extremely short and engaging in shouting loudly until they get their way. And "their way" is usually a pretty crappy way of doing things. And they usually get away with their failures by shouting loudly and denigrating others as "pogues" and "fobbits".

I am currently infested with a couple of O-6s who fit this bill. And are actually more harmful than the so-called "careerists".

BTW, anyone who hits O-6 or E-8 is automatically a "careerist". There are no innocents here, and to pretend otherwise is either naive or deceptive.

Entropy
08-15-2011, 04:15 PM
Funny thing happened today to me, as well.

Was sitting through one of our twice a day production meetings (twice a day? WTF???) and someone mentioned the "80% solution".

"80%, I said... don't you mean 70% solution?" I mean, the basis for the phrase was that 70% was "passing".

But, no, some mouth breathing moron decided that if 70% was good, then 80% is better, so now we need to make sure our product meets the 80% solution, because it is better.:confused::mad:

Of course, that doesn't stop the idiots at the top from taking several MONTHS to get an intel product out the door. MONTHS!!!! All in the moronic, risk averse attempt to get product "perfect".

80% solution my *ss....

Unfortunately that's long been SOP at HHQ and theater intel shops.

bumperplate
08-15-2011, 09:35 PM
There is an additional complication:

A significant number of the "no-nonsense" guys are actually idiots who do not understand that being a senior officer is a nuanced, political job. They are noted by being tall or extremely short and engaging in shouting loudly until they get their way. And "their way" is usually a pretty crappy way of doing things. And they usually get away with their failures by shouting loudly and denigrating others as "pogues" and "fobbits".

I am currently infested with a couple of O-6s who fit this bill. And are actually more harmful than the so-called "careerists".

BTW, anyone who hits O-6 or E-8 is automatically a "careerist". There are no innocents here, and to pretend otherwise is either naive or deceptive.

You bring up an excellent point. Anyone that's spent five or more years in the military can see that there are nuances to senior officer ranks. I don't think any of us would deny that or state that the ability to operate in such an arena should be discounted. I think the problem is that around E8 and around O5, there seems to be a line drawn, whereby only those with the ability to function in that nuanced world are looked at as having promotion potential. That really draws down the pool of "applicants" to step into BCT and higher positions - at least, that's how I view it.

The problem is the following: there's no need for anyone E8 and below or MG and below to really live in such a nuanced world. They need to still be getting their boots dirty on a regular basis. Let the LTG and above take those regular flights to DC and elsewhere, and let them be the bridge between the "no-nonsense" guys and the "nuanced" guys. But, those GOs like their staffs, and they like them to be populated by like-minded individuals, hence the need to be nuanced and worldly come into sharper focus, further down the chain.

If we devote less of the chain to that nuanced and political environment, we'll assuredly see less of that influence down below, where we don't need it.

As others have pointed out, the up-or-out system is one of the root causes for this. It keeps us focused on the next promotion and the next job and the next OER. It takes away a lot of focus from the present, and from truly achieving any degree of excellence in our training or performing.

Pete
08-15-2011, 10:06 PM
The problem is the following: there's no need for anyone E8 and below or MG and below to really live in such a nuanced world. They need to still be getting their boots dirty on a regular basis. Let the LTG and above take those regular flights to DC and elsewhere, and let them be the bridge between the "no-nonsense" guys and the "nuanced" guys.
For officers O-5 and above there are only so many command and operations billets. For better or for worse it's the "nuanced' guys who will get them. It's a numbers game in which there are less spaces the further you rise to the top.

I think part of the reason so many guys and girls are employed in BS paper-shuffling jobs in TDA non-combat organizations -- those who were not command-selected -- is to find a way to keep a reserve of personnel on the payroll in case the Cold War or our current difficulties escalate into a real hot war. That way we have people to run a newly expanded Army should the need arise. In the mean time they can give PowerPoint presentations to each other and aspiring five-percent majors can have full-time jobs being PowerPoint typo-checkers.

Cynical though that may sound, the ability of our TDA and HQ Army to empire-build and fight funding battles with other organizations should not be underestimated.

bumperplate
08-16-2011, 01:51 AM
Good points from Pete. While I agree, I think that on the whole, such a system does more to damage our military than assist. Bottom line in my opinion is that any such escalation in a conflict, as you allude to, will be met by capable people stepping up. If it happens to be a SFC stepping into a 1SG position, or a MAJ climbing into a LTC position, then so be it. That's what battlefield promotions assist us with. I think it makes more sense to bring in more people to fill the bottom than to keep more than we need at the top and live with the day-to-day damage it does.

Just my $0.02.

Ken White
08-16-2011, 02:53 AM
Faces can be fired, spaces are hard to get (and keep) without some sort of justification -- though 35 plus FlagOs in ISAF is likely overkill...

Entropy
08-16-2011, 06:34 AM
Pete,

I think a lot of it has more to do with the up-or-out promotion system and the 20 year vested retirement. There are strong incentives built into the system to promote people and once you get to O-5 almost everyone is going to stay until 20.

Pete
08-16-2011, 05:29 PM
Faces can be fired, spaces are hard to get ...
I remember the distinction between "spaces and faces" from when I attended the MANPRINT Staff Officers Course at Fort Belvoir in 1989. I was a contractor to the Army medical R&D guys at the time.

The acronymn stands for Manpower-Personnel Integration, an DCSPER initiative to make new Army systems more user-friendly. Doctrine-wise it consists of manpower, personnel, safety, training, health hazards, and human factors engineering. I had a 98 percent GPA and was the second or third-highest student there. Had I still worn the green suit I would have been awarded the alternate specialty of MANPRINT Staff Officer, one of the fuzzier ones.

The course was taught by two retired O-5s from MPRI, one Armor and one Field Artillery. The FA guy had been the S-3 and XO of my FA battalion when I was in Germany in '78-'81, so it was a nice reunion. Fred had been in 4th ID in Vietnam, Bronze Star with "V" and Purple Heart. Though he was a leg he was nobody's wimp.

My only regret about the course was the lovely Carly from Fort Rucker, a DA civil servant. We became very affectionate and I kick myself for not taking our friendship to a higher level. If you wait for that "struck by lightning" love feeling you may go to your grave waiting for it to happen.

120mm
08-19-2011, 04:44 AM
Pete,

I think a lot of it has more to do with the up-or-out promotion system and the 20 year vested retirement. There are strong incentives built into the system to promote people and once you get to O-5 almost everyone is going to stay until 20.

This in itself is a good reason to eliminate the fixed, 20 year retirement.

That, and a contribution plan will be much better for the great majority of servicemembers. A contribution plan will also be much less of a political football.

GEN Sullivan may want to stay on the gravy train, but screw him. He doesn't "get" the reasons behind the changes, anyway.

Entropy
08-19-2011, 05:30 AM
This in itself is a good reason to eliminate the fixed, 20 year retirement.


I pretty much agree. Defined benefit retirement plans don't really work too well anymore for a host of reasons.

Jrizzuto77
09-24-2012, 11:39 AM
Pete. I agree with your premise but as we begin to downsize I think there needs to be a balanced approach to standards of excellence. Standards of excellence are very important but if we develop a generation of Soldiers/Professionals that fear taking risk then standards will not amount to anything because we will remain stagnant. As a FG officer, I know it is critically important to reward excellence and rewarding those individuals willing to go against the grain in pursuit of excellence. Going against the grain can sometimes lead to marginal results but the ability of our professionals to take risk is critical to remain mentally agile and professional development. I am committed to recognizing and mitigating.
**The views expressed in this are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy of the Department of the Army, DoD or the US Government. **

JR


One of the things that has bothered me since around 1980 has been this obsession with "standards of excellence" and being "outstanding" all the time. It's not that I don't thing we shouldn't pursue those goals, it's that we're not there yet, in most cases have not been there, but pretending that we are can lead to a kind of dangerous self-deception and an atmosphere in which even to acknowledge that things could be better can come back on you for saying it in the first place.

We all agree that training in the U.S. Army should be better. But to admit that combat skills and overall efficiency could be better within an element under one's own control can be tantamount to confessing to professional dereliction of duty. Thus you better have a solution to the problem, or better yet, not say anything at all about it to any superiors. Just fix it as best you can, even if the solution is half-a**.

Thus these "standards of excellence" and this "outstanding" phenemonena can turn into a self-winding problem within the command atmosphere that leads to deficiencies not being resolved and things being covered up.

I remember around 1980 when U.S. Army Europe put a big emphasis on individual training in battalions while they were in garrison. The problem is the higher HQs sent so many inspectors around with clipboards with evaluation checklists that our NCOs and junior officers got stage fright and were afraid be torn a new one. Thus this conceit about being excellent all the time can prevent you from being even mediocre.